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Stages of Awareness

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About This Framework

This Stages of Awareness will help you handle conflict with yourself and those around you in much more productive ways that lead to higher quality outcomes. By understanding and implementing this framework, you'll be more effective and more efficient in resolving conflict through better communication, the ability to practice empathy, and cultivating genuine curiosity.

Moving from Stage 0 to stage 3 is a personal journey of self-awareness by focusing on what’s going on inside ("What am I feeling? What am I experiencing?") and bringing this awareness to the world.

Stage 0: Focus on Others, Low Self-Awareness

This is the starting point for the majority of the world — a focus on"you" statements
  • External focus — everything happens to you
  • Being in a "You" framework
  • Accusation mindset
  • Believing that you have to change everyone around you, as in "The other person is the problem and needs to be fixed"
  • Strong focus on judgments / disappointment / anger
  • Feeling like a victim, with statements like: "you make me feel"
  • Operating without emotional intelligence 
  • Living with eyes closed
  • Your world vs. The world

Stage 1: Build a Healthy Self-Awareness

Shifting your lens from external to internal
  • Taking ownership of feelings —> "this happened, and I experienced this"
  • Using "I" statements
  • "When I heard you say X, I felt Y …" vs "You said / you did"
  • You're working with the one person you can change: you
  • Living with your "eyes open" / gaining perspective
  • Other tools to use in this stage:
  • The Action/Impact Framework
  • The Three Levels of Conversation —> And importantly, keeping Level 2 & Level 3 conversations off Slack
  • Asking "Is This Safe to Try?" for Decision Making
  • Type 1 vs. Type 2 Decisions
  • The Active Listening Framework

Stage 2: Use Your Self-Awareness for Connection — with Yourself and Others

Learn to listen differently, hold space differently, and communicate differently
  • Starting to cultivate a healthy curiosity 
  • Having a “needs-based awareness of the world,” as in everything we do is an attempt to meet a need  
  • Don't just avoid tensions — start to check things out with people when you observe a tension (most people aren't comfortable doing this, and just let the tension build pressure in the relationship)
  • You can use the Courageous Candor Protocol to practice this
  • Active listening — putting this into practice 
  • verbatim 
  • summary
  • reading between the lines 
  • Speaking in perceptions and observations: "The story I'm telling myself" mode or "The sense I'm getting is that … is that right?"
  • This works when you’re checking something out
  • “I want to check something out with you. The story I’m telling myself is that you don’t want to be here. Is that true?”
  • Differentiating between empathy, advice, and reassurance 
  • Other tools to use in this stage:
  • The ARCI Framework for Decision Making (aka RACI)
  • The Active Listening Framework

Stage 3: Integrate Your Self-Awareness into the World

Learn to look externally with a cultivated self -awareness
  • Integration doesn’t mean perfection – it means you’re putting these practices to work throughout your life and taking every opportunity for growth
  • The story I’m telling myself about myself is that I am … 
  • “How can I help? What would support look like in this situation?” 
  • Not jumping in to fix people or situations when unwarranted or unwanted
  • Learning what you need for support in any given situation
  • Asking for support in a healthy way 
  • "I'd love some support and this is what that could look like"
  • How can I do this differently and show up in the world differently? 


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